Rainbow Sherbet 4, FOTD: Observations
Title: Observations
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (verdant: green, lacking experience), rainbow sherbet 4 (green), malt (PFAH: Jake, Clara, Lars : By your powers combined...), caramel, cherry (I hate writing introspection SO MUCH).
Word Count: 1451
Rating: PG.
Summary: Lars felt a little bit left out.
Notes: This story is basically an excuse to show off all but one of the third generation. Also, the malt is used in the sense of "it takes a village to raise a child," not Capain Planet.
There. Now you have the theme song stuck in your head too.
"I don't know how you guys do it," Lars said. "I mean, I really don't."
Jake glanced up from his youngest daughter, who slept peacefully in his arms, and shrugged. "I don't know either," he said. "I make it up as I go along, mostly. Seems to be working."
"No, but seriously," Lars said. "You've got three kids and you're seriously telling me you don't know how you do it?"
Jake smiled, or at least stretched his lips and bared his teeth. "Oh, trust me. When Elena is screaming for no apparent reason and Vivian has an earache and Felicity is sneaking out of bed at ungodly hours of the night, no, I do not know how I do it. I do know that it involves several boatloads of caffeine."
Lars shuddered. "I can only imagine," he said.
"Hah," Jake said. "Wait until you have them. Felicity Jane Foster, stop pulling your sister's hair!"
Lars looked up just in time to catch Felicity Foster let go of her sister and edge away, looking determinedly innocent. She was nine years old and already shaping up to be heartstoppingly beautiful with her huge brown eyes and heart-shaped face and curling brown hair, so her innocent face packed one hell of a punch.
"How do you do that?" he asked, turning back to Jake and waving at the little girl. "That look would make me melt and back down in like, five seconds. How do you look at that and still say no?"
Jake grinned at that. "Practice, practice, practice, Lars." He shifted Elena in his arms, gently, and tucked the blanket that swaddled her a little more closely against her cheek. "It does help if you have someone to keep you from giving in too easily. Olivia isn't nearly as meltable."
"Huh," Lars said, and leaned back against the bench, looking out at the playground. It was one of those beautiful days just on the edge of spring, where everything was green and verdant, but the chill of winter still lingered in the air. The children running riot over the playground gave testament to it, wrapped up well in sweaters of bright primary colors and snugly-fitting hats, bouncing around like Tigger after being force-fed sugar. It was a cute sight, he supposed, as long as none of them actually belonged to you.
Technically, for him at least, none of them did. However, he'd agreed to babysit for Andy and Leah while their mothers got some quality alone time, and he should probably make sure they weren't killing each other. He stretched up a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of them.
There was Andy, in a bright green sweater that clashed horribly with the darker greens of the trees behind him, swinging as high as he could get on the swings and then jumping off at the highest point of the arc. Someone had taught him how to land decently, and he wasn't in any imminent danger of breaking anything, so Lars let him keep doing it. And there was Leah, too, equally green cap pulled snugly down over her ears, solemnly making and destroying castles in the sandbox.
Babysittees confirmed alive and not bent on self-destruction, Lars settled back against the bench and said, rather morosely, "I am so glad I don't have kids."
Jake glanced up from Elena again, looking startled. "Huh? Oh. Really? I'm really glad I've got mine. As annoying and obnoxious as they can be sometimes, they're mine, you know?"
"Sure," Lars said. "I get that. But... I don't know. I don't want them."
Jake's eyebrows went up, but before he could say anything, Clara Kendall bustled up, pink in the cheeks, a twin attached to each hand.
"Hi," she said, breathlessly. "Sorry we're late. There was a bit of an argument over whose socks were whose. All right, you two," she addressed her children, "go play, but be nice, Marianne Lynne. I don't want to hear that you've been picking on your brother."
"Started another fight, did she?" Jake asked, as Molly ran off towards Andy and the swings, and Billy meandered towards the trees, a little chapter book in his hands.
Clara rolled her eyes and dropped down on the bench on Jake's other side, running her hands through her hair. "However did you guess? They're entering the sibling rivalry phase, God help us all."
Jake snorted. "I can't wait until Ellie's old enough to reciprocate," he replied, the sarcasm clear. "Viv's already being pretty bitchy to her, and she's only been alive for a couple of weeks."
"That's why you have them all at once," Clara said.
Lars tuned out, since the conversation seemed to be moving into various parental woes and how to deal with them. He had absolutely nothing to offer in that arena. Instead, left alone with his own thoughts, he watched Molly run after Felicity and Andy, who'd been lured off the swings and into an energetic game of tag, fiercely determined to keep up despite being three years younger.
It was sort of odd how that'd happened, actually, now that he came to think about it. Children had come to their little group in three-year intervals, first Felicity, then the twins three years later, Andy an adopted anomaly the year after that, but his age put him with Felicity. Then Vivian, three years after the twins, then Leah the year after that, Ivy and Gina as always breaking patterns, and then Elena, a bare two weeks ago...
Okay, maybe the pattern didn't actually hold up. But it sure felt like it.
Lars stretched out his legs, felt the knee he'd torn a ligament in protest. Well, it could suck it, he decided. He didn't actually have to run around after the kids, thank goodness. He didn't have any of his own, and he and Danny weren't planning on any, he because he didn't feel like he could handle them, and Danny...
Well, Danny had a lot of reasons not to want kids. Not least because she could be a carrier for her brother's bone problems.
Besides, their friends were having more than enough babies for all of them. He sometimes felt a little left out at gatherings, now, when the talk was more about bottles and diapers and tricky parental problems than about good beers and funny stories. Seemed like all anyone was interested in was children, these days.
Even Summer wanted children, which blew his mind. She was so... so... fragile, that he still had trouble believing that she could take care of herself. The idea of her with an infant, a whole other person totally dependant on her...
But there it was, she wanted children. She'd asked him the last time she was home, in one of her random leaps of topic, if he would be godfather to her children when she had them. Lars had spent a good thirty seconds in total stunned silence.
Thankfully he'd managed to shift her attention with a joking comment about being a little premature, and then they'd heard about Olivia being in labor a good month early and lost the conversation entirely. But the idea still... it didn't frighten him, exactly. Unnerved him, maybe. Summer was still such a baby, still such a little, little girl for all she was twenty-six and in her third year of medical school. He couldn't imagine her with a baby.
But then, he hadn't been able to imagine Ivy with a baby when he'd first met her, and now she had two, even if neither Andy nor Leah was really a baby anymore. Or Jake. There was a guy he'd never thought would have children. Aaron he'd been able to imagine as a father, but always in the far distant future, never right now. And now all those people had children.
Except him.
Where did that leave him?
The moment he thought that, Molly tripped and fell flat on her face, and Felicity decided that Vivian made a good hair-pulling target again. Vivian set up a wail immediately; Molly lay stunned for a moment, the way Elisa always used to after a particularly gutsy stunt landed her on the ground, and then began to cry, great noisy shrieks that cut across the rest of the playground.
Clara was up and gone in a moment, heading towards her daughter in the deceptively fast walk that Lars had seen on every parent he'd ever met. Jake shouted, "Felicity Jane!" and then said, "Here, hold Ellie," before dumping his infant daughter in Lars's lap and heading after his own errant child.
Lars watched them go, and sighed, exasperated. Apparently that left him holding the baby. Literally.
How ironic.
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (verdant: green, lacking experience), rainbow sherbet 4 (green), malt (PFAH: Jake, Clara, Lars : By your powers combined...), caramel, cherry (I hate writing introspection SO MUCH).
Word Count: 1451
Rating: PG.
Summary: Lars felt a little bit left out.
Notes: This story is basically an excuse to show off all but one of the third generation. Also, the malt is used in the sense of "it takes a village to raise a child," not Capain Planet.
There. Now you have the theme song stuck in your head too.
"I don't know how you guys do it," Lars said. "I mean, I really don't."
Jake glanced up from his youngest daughter, who slept peacefully in his arms, and shrugged. "I don't know either," he said. "I make it up as I go along, mostly. Seems to be working."
"No, but seriously," Lars said. "You've got three kids and you're seriously telling me you don't know how you do it?"
Jake smiled, or at least stretched his lips and bared his teeth. "Oh, trust me. When Elena is screaming for no apparent reason and Vivian has an earache and Felicity is sneaking out of bed at ungodly hours of the night, no, I do not know how I do it. I do know that it involves several boatloads of caffeine."
Lars shuddered. "I can only imagine," he said.
"Hah," Jake said. "Wait until you have them. Felicity Jane Foster, stop pulling your sister's hair!"
Lars looked up just in time to catch Felicity Foster let go of her sister and edge away, looking determinedly innocent. She was nine years old and already shaping up to be heartstoppingly beautiful with her huge brown eyes and heart-shaped face and curling brown hair, so her innocent face packed one hell of a punch.
"How do you do that?" he asked, turning back to Jake and waving at the little girl. "That look would make me melt and back down in like, five seconds. How do you look at that and still say no?"
Jake grinned at that. "Practice, practice, practice, Lars." He shifted Elena in his arms, gently, and tucked the blanket that swaddled her a little more closely against her cheek. "It does help if you have someone to keep you from giving in too easily. Olivia isn't nearly as meltable."
"Huh," Lars said, and leaned back against the bench, looking out at the playground. It was one of those beautiful days just on the edge of spring, where everything was green and verdant, but the chill of winter still lingered in the air. The children running riot over the playground gave testament to it, wrapped up well in sweaters of bright primary colors and snugly-fitting hats, bouncing around like Tigger after being force-fed sugar. It was a cute sight, he supposed, as long as none of them actually belonged to you.
Technically, for him at least, none of them did. However, he'd agreed to babysit for Andy and Leah while their mothers got some quality alone time, and he should probably make sure they weren't killing each other. He stretched up a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of them.
There was Andy, in a bright green sweater that clashed horribly with the darker greens of the trees behind him, swinging as high as he could get on the swings and then jumping off at the highest point of the arc. Someone had taught him how to land decently, and he wasn't in any imminent danger of breaking anything, so Lars let him keep doing it. And there was Leah, too, equally green cap pulled snugly down over her ears, solemnly making and destroying castles in the sandbox.
Babysittees confirmed alive and not bent on self-destruction, Lars settled back against the bench and said, rather morosely, "I am so glad I don't have kids."
Jake glanced up from Elena again, looking startled. "Huh? Oh. Really? I'm really glad I've got mine. As annoying and obnoxious as they can be sometimes, they're mine, you know?"
"Sure," Lars said. "I get that. But... I don't know. I don't want them."
Jake's eyebrows went up, but before he could say anything, Clara Kendall bustled up, pink in the cheeks, a twin attached to each hand.
"Hi," she said, breathlessly. "Sorry we're late. There was a bit of an argument over whose socks were whose. All right, you two," she addressed her children, "go play, but be nice, Marianne Lynne. I don't want to hear that you've been picking on your brother."
"Started another fight, did she?" Jake asked, as Molly ran off towards Andy and the swings, and Billy meandered towards the trees, a little chapter book in his hands.
Clara rolled her eyes and dropped down on the bench on Jake's other side, running her hands through her hair. "However did you guess? They're entering the sibling rivalry phase, God help us all."
Jake snorted. "I can't wait until Ellie's old enough to reciprocate," he replied, the sarcasm clear. "Viv's already being pretty bitchy to her, and she's only been alive for a couple of weeks."
"That's why you have them all at once," Clara said.
Lars tuned out, since the conversation seemed to be moving into various parental woes and how to deal with them. He had absolutely nothing to offer in that arena. Instead, left alone with his own thoughts, he watched Molly run after Felicity and Andy, who'd been lured off the swings and into an energetic game of tag, fiercely determined to keep up despite being three years younger.
It was sort of odd how that'd happened, actually, now that he came to think about it. Children had come to their little group in three-year intervals, first Felicity, then the twins three years later, Andy an adopted anomaly the year after that, but his age put him with Felicity. Then Vivian, three years after the twins, then Leah the year after that, Ivy and Gina as always breaking patterns, and then Elena, a bare two weeks ago...
Okay, maybe the pattern didn't actually hold up. But it sure felt like it.
Lars stretched out his legs, felt the knee he'd torn a ligament in protest. Well, it could suck it, he decided. He didn't actually have to run around after the kids, thank goodness. He didn't have any of his own, and he and Danny weren't planning on any, he because he didn't feel like he could handle them, and Danny...
Well, Danny had a lot of reasons not to want kids. Not least because she could be a carrier for her brother's bone problems.
Besides, their friends were having more than enough babies for all of them. He sometimes felt a little left out at gatherings, now, when the talk was more about bottles and diapers and tricky parental problems than about good beers and funny stories. Seemed like all anyone was interested in was children, these days.
Even Summer wanted children, which blew his mind. She was so... so... fragile, that he still had trouble believing that she could take care of herself. The idea of her with an infant, a whole other person totally dependant on her...
But there it was, she wanted children. She'd asked him the last time she was home, in one of her random leaps of topic, if he would be godfather to her children when she had them. Lars had spent a good thirty seconds in total stunned silence.
Thankfully he'd managed to shift her attention with a joking comment about being a little premature, and then they'd heard about Olivia being in labor a good month early and lost the conversation entirely. But the idea still... it didn't frighten him, exactly. Unnerved him, maybe. Summer was still such a baby, still such a little, little girl for all she was twenty-six and in her third year of medical school. He couldn't imagine her with a baby.
But then, he hadn't been able to imagine Ivy with a baby when he'd first met her, and now she had two, even if neither Andy nor Leah was really a baby anymore. Or Jake. There was a guy he'd never thought would have children. Aaron he'd been able to imagine as a father, but always in the far distant future, never right now. And now all those people had children.
Except him.
Where did that leave him?
The moment he thought that, Molly tripped and fell flat on her face, and Felicity decided that Vivian made a good hair-pulling target again. Vivian set up a wail immediately; Molly lay stunned for a moment, the way Elisa always used to after a particularly gutsy stunt landed her on the ground, and then began to cry, great noisy shrieks that cut across the rest of the playground.
Clara was up and gone in a moment, heading towards her daughter in the deceptively fast walk that Lars had seen on every parent he'd ever met. Jake shouted, "Felicity Jane!" and then said, "Here, hold Ellie," before dumping his infant daughter in Lars's lap and heading after his own errant child.
Lars watched them go, and sighed, exasperated. Apparently that left him holding the baby. Literally.
How ironic.